


Day 3: Disoriented / Get It Out

by mrs_d



Series: Do What I Wantober 2020 [3]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, F/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26805862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: He had to get out of here.
Relationships: Amenadiel & Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Series: Do What I Wantober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947496
Comments: 4
Kudos: 78





	Day 3: Disoriented / Get It Out

Awareness returned all at once with the stiff slide of a needle into the back of his hand and the uncomfortable feeling of something being forced in somewhere it didn’t belong.

He flapped his wrist, hoping to dislodge it. The movement only succeeded in making his tender skin sting, and something warm touched his forearm. He recoiled, and the thing in his hand gave an encouraging pull. One more twist, and he’d have it. Whatever it was, he had to get it out. Now. Right now, before—

“There we go,” said an unfamiliar voice. A woman. “Sorry about that. It was hard to find a vein.”

Lucifer blinked his eyes open, trying to see the needle that shouldn’t have penetrated his skin, but everything was bright and blurry. He winced and closed his eyes again. What she was talking about? Who was she? Where— oh. 

_There we go indeed,_ he thought dreamily. 

“Seems you gave me the good stuff,” he tried to say, but the words were just a bunch of sibilants slipping over his tongue. He wasn’t even sure they came out in English. The woman — nurse, he realized belatedly — patted his forearm with a very warm hand. 

“Thought you’d like that... Mr. Morningstar,” she said, with a strange, awkward pause before saying his name. “Just rest,” she added. “I’m sure your detective will be along shortly.”

The detective, he thought, drifting away on the drug that was trickling into his bloodstream. Her presence here explained a few things at least — how the needle could go into his skin, and why the morphine was making him so disoriented. She made him vulnerable, she always had... 

Wait. From a distance he heard a gunshot echo in his penthouse, saw a flicker of Daniel’s deranged face. Was that— that wasn’t— 

“Rest,” the nurse said, and he felt the drug pulling at him again. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

She walked away, her rubber-soled shoes barely audible over the rattling sound that had been at the edge of his hearing for— seconds? Minutes? He couldn’t be sure, but the more he focused on it, the less the morphine seemed to be affecting him. His head was clearing, and the _pain._ His right leg burned like his thigh was on fire, while the rest of him was colder than he’d ever felt before. 

He slowly opened his eyes again, letting them adjust to the light. It was very white. Bit by bit, his surroundings came into focus. The definition of a sterile hospital room, complete with rows of fluorescent tubes overhead. 

The rattling persisted. It was coming from his left, he was sure of it. With an effort, he turned his head, or started to, when the nurse’s overly warm hand on his shoulder stopped him. 

“How did you—?” he slurred, because he hadn’t seen her return. 

She didn’t answer his unfinished question. She was fiddling with the tubes, the bag of clear fluid that was suspended above him. She caught his eyes and looked at him with something like pity.

“That should help,” she said. “Sit tight— Mr. Morningstar.” 

Her voice seemed to falter again when she said his name, but Lucifer’s eyelids were drooping. 

Time began to move in fits and starts. He heard the nurse speaking again, whispering in a hushed, fearful tone. She wasn’t speaking English, but when he could gather his focus enough, he could understand.

“—shouldn’t have to suffer,” she was saying.

A man answered her, another stranger. His voice was guttural, furious. Lucifer tried desperately to listen, to hang on to consciousness, but he could only make out three words the man said.

“Like a mortal.” 

“No,” said the nurse. She went on, but pain in Lucifer’s head was building, the rattling getting louder.

“It’s what he’d do to us,” he heard the man say, before it all became unbearable. 

Lucifer shivered — a full-body shudder that caused every muscle to tense up. His right thigh burned anew, like it had been pressed with a hot brand, searing his skin and roasting his flesh. A roaring filled his ears, a pulsing thrum of pain and noise, but he could still hear the nurse’s voice — Mr. Morningstar, she called him again, or was it Lord this time? — and always that damned rattling. 

It was a sound he recognized: it was coming from the door. The door that was laden with chains, though Lucifer didn’t know how he knew that, as he couldn’t see them. The door that wasn’t locked. He didn’t know how he knew that, either. 

He only knew he had to get out of here. 

He shut his eyes, shut out the hospital room that wasn’t really a hospital, and tried to raise his hands to cover his ears. Anything to make it stop — but he couldn’t move. His eyes snapped open again, and he saw a navy sky coated in stars that he knew all too well. He blinked and found himself back in the white room, but he was under the stars, too, hot sand below his back where the bed propped him up as well. 

And then he heard a familiar, beautiful voice— 

“Lucifer, hang on!”

Pain rushed into his body, lancing through him with the sound of Chloe’s voice. But he knew that if he could do as she said, if he could hang on, he could use it like Theseus’ string in the labyrinth to find his way back. He could get out of here, go to her, go home.

So when she spoke again, he clung to the sound, even though it was agony.

“Amenadiel’s coming, just hold on, okay? You’re gonna be all right, Lucifer, I promise. Please, _please,_ just hang on. Come back to me, stay with me.”

 _I will,_ he promised silently, but then he heard and felt the presence of an angel. A real angel, not like him. 

And his brother’s voice: “About time I returned the favor, Luci.” 

And light. Light like he hadn’t seen or felt in eons. Warm and peaceful, full of grace, understanding, and love. Always love, he thought, when Chloe took his hand. 

It was his last sensation before the world and all its pain went dark. 

* * *

He woke up expecting to see a hospital room, though he didn’t know why. But there were no white walls, no garish fluorescent tubes overhead. Just the polished black stone ceiling of his penthouse, reflecting warm sunlight from enormous windows. His pillow under his head. His golden sheets pulled up to his chest. 

And Chloe’s familiar snores, coming from the chair at the foot of the bed.

He raised his head and blinked at her in confusion. He felt remarkably refreshed, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were doing here. How long had he been asleep? How did they get back from Nevada, and what had they found in the desert? Was the case solved?

He sat up the rest of the way and noticed the pull of sticky fabric around his crotch. He chuckled in faint disbelief — why on Earth would he have put his clothes back on? And why was Chloe not in bed beside him? He glanced around the room for evidence — did they get into the edibles last night?

Last night.... Something pulled unpleasantly at his memories.

He frowned and threw back the bedsheets. He put his feet on the floor and grimaced. He was still wearing his socks; they didn’t exactly smell fresh. He tiptoed past Chloe’s sleeping form to get to the bathroom, thinking only of a shower. 

When he reached down to remove his pants, however, he froze. His trousers were crusted with dried blood that flaked to the floor with every move he made.

“What?” he murmured, touching it, and in a rush all his memories came back.

The desert, the unexpectedly demonic foe who’d somehow smuggled a dagger made of Hell-forged steel to Earth. The flash of movement when he’d thrown it at Chloe. The pain of the blade sinking deep into his femoral artery when Lucifer moved faster, stepping in front of it without a moment’s hesitation. 

He tugged his pants down and ran his hands over smooth, unblemished skin. It could have killed him. It should have—

The hospital. 

He shuddered as the full weight of where he’d been sunk in. The wound _had_ killed him— just for a few seconds. He would have to ask the detective how she’d brought him back, but it was obvious that Amenadiel’s feather had done the rest. Still, Lucifer had been dead long enough that a certain enterprising demon thought that he’d won, that he could capture the King of Hell and lock him in a room like he was just another mortal soul. 

Which meant that the order that Lucifer had so painstakingly restored Below clearly wasn’t that orderly anymore. 

His eyes burned as he showered, and when he was clean and wearing a fresh suit, he called for Amenadiel, and told him to bring Maze. 

Because he’d made a promise, and he was a Devil of his word. Even if all of Hell stood in his path, he would always come back to Chloe.


End file.
